StartEngine CEO Howard Marks Announces ERC-1450 Security Token Standard

In a Medium post this week, StartEngine Founder and CEO Howard Marks announced ERC-1450, a new token standard for “creating digital stock certificates. According to Marks, “ERC-1450 uses a registered transfer agent as the source for maintaining and updating the ownership of the securities while allowing the blockchain to publicly display the ownership of all of the tokenized securities.”

The ERC-20 token standard, for Ethereum smart contracts, was an important constant that allowed for the creation of over one thousand Utility tokens and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) over the past two years. ERC-20 gave token developers a template to create new coins and gave infrastructure companies, like wallet developers and exchanges, an easy way to build tools to support multiple tokens in the ecosystem.

StartEngine Secure is the “first SEC registered transfer agent” for ERC-1450. This allows StartEngine to record shareholder  ownership, as well as the transfer of ownership between shareholders (transfer of ownership would be done by a registered broker-dealer).

Shareholders in StartEngine have been issued ERC-1450 tokens and there are and additional 165 companies that are eligible to be listed on the ERC-1450 smart contract.